[Sca-cooks] Re: (Period cookery questions)

[Susan Fox-Davis]

Elizabeth A Heckert wrote:

>     It's the addition of buckwheat.  If by buckwheat, Hagen means
> Kasha--a grain I associate with Russia--it is the only time she mentions
> it in the second volume.  I know it's used to make pancakes (and
> blini????) and a natural foods industry ready to eat cereal.  I don't
> remember seeing it being sold as a seasoning--which would indicate to me
> that its inclusion into Bede's will is in terms of medicine.  But I don't
> know for sure, and (not that anyone here would) it could perhaps be
> argued that buckwheat flat breads-'pancakes' are period for the
> Anglo-Saxons.
>
>    Elizabeth

I found a nice page about  Buckwheat, with a little history that implies it
could have been there:
<http://www.pancakeparlour.com/Of_Interest/health/Healthy/Buckwheat/buckwheat.html>

>First grown thousands of years ago in China
>and Japan, buckwheat was taken to Russia,
>from Asia to Europe by The Crusaders (who
>got it from the Saracens) , and then in the
>17th Century, the early settlers carried the
>plants, on board their ships, to America....
>The name evolved because the nut or fruit of the plant is
>three-sided in form, with sharp angles, resembling the triangular
>Beech-nut, hence the name of the plant, Buckwheat, which
>comes from the Dutch name Boek-weit meaning Beech-wheat'.

They go on talking about its use in various countries, from Japan to India,
to the Himalayas, to Russia, to Germany and so on.

Selene, Caid